Post Moves - Clarity Surrender
released April 28, 2023 on Sweet Wreath
Selected Press
“Using a variety of stringed instruments, electronics treatments, voice and You only what else, Wenc’s music combines elements of folk music with the avant grade. This trope is not uncommon, but Wenc’s guitar playing takes a complex approach to contemporary acoustic primitive/art techniques. And much of his work would sound right at home on a bill with Daniel Bachman, among others. But the additional elements that pop into the music - treated vocals, percussion and whatnot - have a definite experimental flavor”
- The Wire, Byron Coley
Post Moves - Heart Music
released April 8, 2022 on Where to Now? Records (UK)
Selected Press
“New avant-Americana horizons from Sam Wenc’s Post Moves, meshing folk music with aspects of spiritual jazz, post-rock and avant minimalism in a way that beautifully transcends the sum of its parts.” - Boomkat
“Transcendence sits at the centre of Heart Music. It is present both in the intention to move beyond traditional conceptions of folk music, and the meditative, almost spiritual form of deep listening such a style encourages. An invitation to sit with conflicts and inconsistencies in order to understand more fully” - Various Small Flames
“Scratchy sonic reveries are broken down into haunting visages, remembrances of another time translated into whispered codes. Sam Wenc’s Post Moves project uses a timeless palette to explore the furthest reaches of folk music and concoct an alien dialect that uses resonant shapes to share messages across time” - Foxy Digitalis
Post Moves & The Sound Memory Ensemble
released January 20, 2023 on Moone Records & Lobby Art Editions
Selected Press
Recall the Dream Breath feels different from the outset. It is stripped back, decluttered, both in terms of the instruments used (pedal steel returns as the main player, along with bass and banjo) and the underlying atmosphere. Intuition and experimentation are still important, but here they are unshackled from the contextual intricacies of the previous record. The result is something freer, a widescreen meandering journey through dreams and memories as a means to better situate the listener in their present.
This is apparent from opener ‘Grief Fields’. Sparse lines of pedal steel are left to wander against a softly quiet backdrop like streaks of dawn cloud. But from the halfway point it begins to gather momentum, the slow beat of percussion heralding the arrival of additional instrumentation that rises in a dramatic crest. This eventually subsides, leaving behind a solitary banjo and a hushed sense of post-storm calm, and with the sense of having been through something and emerged on the other side.” - Various Small Flames
“After the dense, absorbing bounds of Sam Wenc’s album Heart Music, the sparkling sides of Recall the Dream Breath feel relatively weightless. On the latest peek into the album, a collaboration with labelmate John Dieterich (Deerhoof), Wenc threads his melodies through tones and hues with a whimsical weave. The song sputters by like a clockwork diorama, blissfully buoyant, until a bout of tension begins to unravel the last minute. Wenc and Dieterich charm listeners with their wonderland before the skin begins to slip and the bolts show through, their jagged air a juxtaposition to the first half’s benign bliss. The new album is out January 20th from Moone Records. In addition to Dieterich, the record also contains contributions from Kyle Field.” - Raven Sings the Blues
Post Moves - Cut Into Your Own Dimension
released October 30, 2020 on Noumenal Loom
Selected Press
“glitchy, spacey sound that lands somewhere between BJ Cole’s 1973 progressive classic The New Hovering Dog, vintage educational doc ambiance, spoken word collage, and Cocteau Twins floatiness” - Aquarium Drunkard
“Cut Into Your Own Dimension never settles in one place, experimenting with molding the constituent parts into new shapes. There’s an uneasy sense of surrealism on ‘Ira Arrives for Purim’, opening with screeched glitching and a clipped vocal sample, before cutting immediately to another garbled sample, this time supported by melancholic swells of subdued synths. The effect is one of a collaged dreamscape, a juxtaposition of harsh and oddly subdued of which David Lynch would be proud.” - Various Small Flames
released October 30, 2020 on Noumenal Loom
Selected Press
“glitchy, spacey sound that lands somewhere between BJ Cole’s 1973 progressive classic The New Hovering Dog, vintage educational doc ambiance, spoken word collage, and Cocteau Twins floatiness” - Aquarium Drunkard
“Cut Into Your Own Dimension never settles in one place, experimenting with molding the constituent parts into new shapes. There’s an uneasy sense of surrealism on ‘Ira Arrives for Purim’, opening with screeched glitching and a clipped vocal sample, before cutting immediately to another garbled sample, this time supported by melancholic swells of subdued synths. The effect is one of a collaged dreamscape, a juxtaposition of harsh and oddly subdued of which David Lynch would be proud.” - Various Small Flames
Post Moves - No Dignity in Haste
released on November 25, 2019 on Obsolete Staircases
Selected Press
“This blend of old and new is something stands out on the record. The improvised guitar could come from any decade of the modern era, but the sonic landscapes (crated through synthesized and field recordings) are decidedly twenty-first century.” - Various Small Flames
released on November 25, 2019 on Obsolete Staircases
Selected Press
“This blend of old and new is something stands out on the record. The improvised guitar could come from any decade of the modern era, but the sonic landscapes (crated through synthesized and field recordings) are decidedly twenty-first century.” - Various Small Flames
Post Moves - Unison of Motion
released on July 6, 2018 on Lobby Art Editions
Selected Press
"the singular music of pedal steel guitarist, Sam Wenc...takes an instrument that is usually associated in a cliche way and turns it into something very atmospheric and expansive" - John Schaefer, WNYC
“There’s a certain duality between nature and simulation at work on Unison of Motion, though one which is collapsing in the contemporary moment. Post Moves conjure that enduring sense of the vast American landscape, the sense of promise and nostalgia rolled into one, though this classic dream is shaped and distorted by technology to form a hyperreal present” - Various Small Flames
released on July 6, 2018 on Lobby Art Editions
Selected Press
"the singular music of pedal steel guitarist, Sam Wenc...takes an instrument that is usually associated in a cliche way and turns it into something very atmospheric and expansive" - John Schaefer, WNYC
“There’s a certain duality between nature and simulation at work on Unison of Motion, though one which is collapsing in the contemporary moment. Post Moves conjure that enduring sense of the vast American landscape, the sense of promise and nostalgia rolled into one, though this classic dream is shaped and distorted by technology to form a hyperreal present” - Various Small Flames
Post Moves - for Vibraphone, Bowed Banjo, Synthesizer, Nylon String Guitar
released on December 28, 2019 on Lobby Art Editions
released on December 28, 2019 on Lobby Art Editions
RON - Material Progress
released June 22, 2018 on Lobby Art Editions / Egomaniac
Selected Press
“That's the way this music works - it shows infinite amount of details in a seemingly simple sound. That's kind of odd to realize that blurry music can sharpen the perception, but miraculously it does.” - Microphones in the Trees
released June 22, 2018 on Lobby Art Editions / Egomaniac
Selected Press
“That's the way this music works - it shows infinite amount of details in a seemingly simple sound. That's kind of odd to realize that blurry music can sharpen the perception, but miraculously it does.” - Microphones in the Trees
Post Moves - Boogie Night at the Edge of Town
released July 7, 2017 on Lobby Art Editions
Selected Press
“Post Moves have a built a genre as you would a house of mirrors, with reflections stacked endlessly atop one another in an off-kilter maze, each element distorted into an uncanny counterpart. The Portland-based trio have described their sound as being in somewhat of an identity crisis by conventional standards—"What the hell is Americana, anyway?” - Thrd Coast
“’Cosmic’ is a better qualifier than any to describe the peculiar lyrics and the tendency to drift into the ether that make Post Moves record, Boogie Night at the Edge of Town, such a compelling listen. Though Wenc's intricate web of glistening guitar work is the most immediately inviting element of the record, it's his offbeat stories about bummed-out surfers and mysterious grifters that provide direction for Boogie Night's many strange twists and turns. Like a Thomas Pynchon novel interpreted by one of New York indie label Captured Tracks' many dreamy guitar bands, the album's strongest moments have a penchant for vanishing into a haze as soon as they start to make sense.” - Willamette Week
released July 7, 2017 on Lobby Art Editions
Selected Press
“Post Moves have a built a genre as you would a house of mirrors, with reflections stacked endlessly atop one another in an off-kilter maze, each element distorted into an uncanny counterpart. The Portland-based trio have described their sound as being in somewhat of an identity crisis by conventional standards—"What the hell is Americana, anyway?” - Thrd Coast
“’Cosmic’ is a better qualifier than any to describe the peculiar lyrics and the tendency to drift into the ether that make Post Moves record, Boogie Night at the Edge of Town, such a compelling listen. Though Wenc's intricate web of glistening guitar work is the most immediately inviting element of the record, it's his offbeat stories about bummed-out surfers and mysterious grifters that provide direction for Boogie Night's many strange twists and turns. Like a Thomas Pynchon novel interpreted by one of New York indie label Captured Tracks' many dreamy guitar bands, the album's strongest moments have a penchant for vanishing into a haze as soon as they start to make sense.” - Willamette Week